


Last Words of a Shooting Star

by rhiannonwrites



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Can be platonic or romantic, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, First Words Soulmate Tattoo, Hurt No Comfort, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Spoilers for Ancient Rome Sidequest (Rusty Quill Gaming), last words soulmate tattoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhiannonwrites/pseuds/rhiannonwrites
Summary: Between two soulmates, one has the first words their other half ever said to them. The other has the last.Sasha didn'tgetsoulmates, until she did.
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Sasha Racket, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Sasha Racket
Comments: 25
Kudos: 53





	Last Words of a Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags  
> Title from the song by Mitski

Sasha never quite got the idea of soulmates, and she rarely, if ever, thought much about who her soulmate might be. Your mates were just your mates, and you proved that by being loyal to them; by protecting them, and being there for each other. Not through some words on your skin that you were born with and had no control over.

Even so, there they were, tattooed on the inside of her wrist. So maybe there was just something more to it she would never quite understand.

* * *

“Kill the monster.”

They stand back-to-back; she can’t see him, but she can feel him. He occasionally brushes gently against the backs of her legs, a reassuring presence amongst the chaos.

And she can hear him clear as day. She hears him as if he speaks directly into her ear. “Much obliged!”

Sasha’s blood turns to ice. Every noise in the surrounding battle is drowned out by the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, by the echo of his words. The words she’s never thought too much about, but still knows by heart.

And all at once, she realizes that she finally gets it; she understands why your soulmate isn’t the same as any old mate. Why they’re meant to be so special.

Because _of course,_ it’s him. She gets it.

(It’s far too late now for her to do anything about it, but she does get it.)

Without thinking, she catapults herself over the guard nearest to Grizzop, putting her own body between them and giving herself a better angle on the enemy, then lashes out wildly three times with her dagger, baring her teeth at him. The first swing hits, but she staggers, and the second and third both miss.

 _Sloppy._ She is never sloppy. But Grizzop’s voice keeps playing in her head, and it’s all she can focus on. But she needs to protect him.

Three arrows fly past her, aimed at the guard she’d just tried to attack. All three miss.

Sasha has never been so foolish as to turn her back on an enemy. But she _needs_ to see that he’s okay, so she does now, the need to protect him tugging harder on her than any meager sense of self-preservation she might have left.

She turns just in time to see the spears enter his body. Three to his small torso. One into the back of his head and out through his throat.

Something inside her tears, crumbles, shatters. She swears she can feel it when each spear hits him. Distantly, she thinks she hears herself scream; feels her knees buckle under her own weight.

The enemies converge around her and everything goes dark.

* * *

She spends an unknowable amount of time drifting in and out of consciousness, catching only incomprehensible glimpses of what goes on around her.

She comes to for good, awoken by blinding sunlight. The dragons free themselves of their bonds and so does she. She goes to Cicero and frees him as well. She tries to talk to him, but he’s shutting down and talking complete nonsense, so she leaves him for now.

She looks to the spot where she knows Grizzop fell. Some part of her is morbidly curious—She’d walked around dead for several weeks and then got better. Maybe there’s some way he could have survived?

(One look at his body puts that thought to rest.)

She moves to kneel beside him. Gently; so gently as if trying not to wake him, (or, perhaps, trying not to hurt him) she takes his limp body into her arms and closes his eyes.

When someone is alive, their tattoo is illegible to everyone but themself, the letters shifting and twisting in constant movement. In death, however, they still along with their bearer. When she looks at his wrist, she has to wipe away some of his blood to read his tattoo.

_Help?_

She recalls what he’d said to her first. _No, you’re being a great help! They hate fire!_

He’d been trying to _compliment_ her, she realizes only now. He’d been trying to compliment her, and she’d taken it as an insult. She pulls him in for a hug, pressing her forehead against his and squeezing her eyes shut.

She thinks that maybe she should have given him more hugs while he was alive.

When she finally lets him go, laying him down like one would lay down a sleeping child, she notices his pack, and inside she finds four potions of cure serious wounds. She drinks one, and she can feel her wounds knitting themselves together. Her whole body still aches, but it’s possible to ignore now. Physically, it’s the best she’s felt in she doesn’t know how long.

It does nothing for the stabbing pain that has settled deep in her chest though. That is one wound that only time will heal.

She looks down at him for just another moment, then stands up, grabs Cicero, and starts walking out of Rome.

She doesn’t look back.


End file.
